From the forum Issue 88

[Darran@Retro Gamer]

This month we'd like to know your favourite unofficial arcade clone and what it was a clone of.

[jdanddiet]

Of course there were loads on the Speccy, but my 1st love was a Scramble clone called Penetrator by Melbourne House. It also had a cool level editor!

[RetroBob]

Does Action Fighter on the Master System count? Seems similar to Spy Hunter, has a great sense of speed and the music is ace too.

[ipmarks]

My absolute favourite unofficial arcade clone was Starstrike 3D on the ZX Spectrum.
With no official port of Star Wars (I think there was eventually, much later in the Spectrum's life) this program was a godsend. Top class graphics, great gameplay, and pretty much arcade perfect. I played it so much I think it gave me RSI.

Mention must also go to Horace goes Skiing for a great Frogger clone... but not to Kong by Ocean, that could just be one of the worst unofficial clones ever.

[djcarlos]

"Arcadians" on the Electron.....mainly cos it was the first game I ever played on my very first computer.

[stvd]

Bear Bovver (ZX Spectrum), a loose clone of Burgertime.
I say "loose" as the programmer at least went out his way to change the graphics
rather than going for an all-out rip-off!

[Mayhem]

Toss up between two really, both on Commodore machines... Gridrunner by Jeff Minter for making Centipede more exciting, or Toy Bizarre by Mark Turmell for making the concept of Mario Bros actually fun and balanced fair.

[thevulture]

Mr Ee! on the BBC of all places.Blatant Mr Do! clone and therefore utterly amazing.

[bsg]

Hmm, I think I would have to go with Minestorm on the Vectrex. I loved Asteroids in the Arcade and this version was the closest thing anybody could get bar owning a real cab. I still get a tingle in my tackle when I turn the beast on

[pantal00ns]

Of course there were loads on the Speccy, but my 1st love was a Scramble clone called Penetrator by Melbourne House. It also had a cool level editor!

Bugger that was the first game that sprung to mind......

So from the same platform and era Combat Zone by Artic great little battlezone clone.

I'm sure they did a load of clones, including a Galaxians one called Galaxians .

[ncf1]

"Taxman" on the Apple II, which I thought was way better than the other Pacman clones at the time and even more fun than the original ports.

[Antiriad2097]

My first love was Mushroom Mania, one of the better 8 bit Centipede clones, but its roundly beaten by Defence Force, the Oric's very own slick version of Defender.

[SirClive]

Galaxians on the C16. Obviously an unlicensed Galaxian. But it is the game that made me a gamer. Just watching a mate play it changed my life.

[Havantgottaclue]

Tony Crowther showed early indications of his talent with his 1983 game Bug Blaster, a Centipede clone with a generous splash of colour (by Commodore 64 standards, that is).

I also had a fair amount of fun with a very rudimentary Defender clone called Annihilator 2 although it is widely thought to have been a steaming pile of horse dung (score on Lemon64 1.4 out of 10). I would add, however, that the version that's "going around" (cough) seems to have screwed up collision detection and sprites randomly becoming expanded - obviously a bad dump (!) as these problems weren't in the original (though that doesn't mean it wasn't filth).

[martin8777]

Probably "Hopper" on the Acorn Electron as that was probably the first game I ever played at home. Arcadians was good too!